In an effort to combat the United States mental health crisis, state education agencies, regional education agencies, and school districts have created pathways for professionals to work within the field of school mental health by providing opportunities for students to intern in local schools. One of NCSSLE’s Mental Health Service Professional (MHSP2019) grantees, the Tulare County Office of Education (TCOE) in California, is a great example as they have created a robust and sustainable Mental Health Internship program across their district. Their internship experience is aligned with existing school-based mental health programs that TCOE provides, including educationally related mental health and wellness services.
Internship Program Overview
Over the course of the past five years, TCOE’s internship program has focused on mentoring, providing guidance on therapeutic relationships, and offering hands-on experiences to interns while increasing and expanding the program and its partnerships. In fact, when TCOE began this program in 2019, each cohort consisted of 2-4 interns. Since then, they have grown to cohorts of roughly 32 interns, while continuing to focus on unique experiences and ensuring students receive the support they need along the way. Collaboration with universities is an important aspect of this program. TCOE aligns their program with university learning competencies, and partners with local universities to recruit students for the program.
Part of what makes this program a success is the intentionality they put into the student intern experience. Upon hire, there is a two-day onboarding process with support from the Human Resources department. The program also uses “rounding”, a practice used at TCOE developed by Quint Studer, who created 9 Principles: A Guide to Individual and Organizational Excellence. In addition, there are monthly overviews of data tracking with interns, and use of professional development opportunities. They also provide rich and meaningful training every Friday, based on interns’ areas of interest. Quarterly, county-wide networking events are held with school social workers, interns, school SEL teams, community organizations, administrators, and more, to develop and sustain relationships across the county. Participants also receive a wide array of support through a Social Worker mentor, supervision through the program, and a cohort of peers. They maintain a “Grow Your Own” model by bringing interns into a community of people already doing this work and providing them with a network of necessary support across the field to pave the way for newcomers.
Overall, their goal is to minimize stigma and promote mental health and wellbeing on campus. They do this through mental health workers providing a better understanding of school social work and mental health, and the resources provided on campus. While every school is different, they have created a visual of overlapping roles to aid in the process, which was inspired by the School Social Work Association of America.
Impact of Intern Program
TCOE reports that this program has helped graduate students feel empowered, motivated, and prepared to go into this field after graduating. On a larger scale, due to lack of resources and funding, schools often need support to sustain programs such as the Tulare County Internship Program. The MHSP grant allowed schools and students to receive the necessary financial support to offset costs in hopes of sustaining these internships positions. They have also seen an impact with students and families through increased services and resources available, and decreased ratios of providers to students and families.
Next Steps for the TCOE Intern Program
TCOE is doing incredible work to build the capacity of interns through their internship program. They will continue the work with use of financial incentives for school sites to first support interns and mentors on campuses and later retain and hire mental health professionals to increase the pipeline of mental health providers on campuses and positively impact their communities.
For more details on Tulare County’s School Based Mental Health Internship Program, listen to an episode of our In Session podcast that features intern capacity building through multidisciplinary teams with Dr. Rose Rincon Hernandez and Gianna Merriam.